The prison agency never received a court judgment that said that an inmate was to be moved from a prison ward in Mount Carmel to the main hospital building, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri said on Wednesday.
The case was first flagged by Professor Andrew Azzopardi, the head of the university’s faculty for social wellbeing.
Somali national Mahad Mohamed Abdiqani, 23 was meant to let out of the forensic wing and into the main hospital in October of last year but was only transferred in February 2021. The man had been charged with attempted robbery but was cleared of all criminal responsibility because of his mental state.
Azzopardi said the man spent an extra four months in the prison ward due to an oversight by the prison’s records office and called for a magisterial inquiry to take place.
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Posted by Andrew Azzopardi on Tuesday, March 2, 2021
Asked about the case during a visit at the prison on Wednesday, Minister Camilleri played down the incident, saying that Abdiqani was still being treated as a patient at the forensic ward.
He also pointed out that the correctional services agency was not informed about the court decree to transfer Abdiqani to the main hospital. The decree issued by Judge Victor Axiaq, in fact, only stated that the Mental Health Commissioner had to be notified. Camilleri said that the agency had taken immediate steps once the case was brought to its attention.
When asked by this newsroom if a compensation will be given to the person in question for having his sentence extended by four months unknowingly, Camilleri said that he was not in a position to discuss the situation.
The minister was asked again about reports of a ‘punishment chair’ at the prison, but he insisted that no such mechanism exists. What there is, he said, is a restraining chair that is sometimes used in extreme cases of disturbances by inmates.
New medical facility
Camilleri was visiting the Corradino prison to inaugurate a new medical facility.
The €600,000 facility has been used for the past couple of months and has seen the number of inmates admitted to hospital go down by around 50%.
Prison surgeon Christofer Cremona said that a total of 80 minor operations were conducted at the medical facilities. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 4,000 swabs have been conducted at the prison facilities and over 1,000 vaccines have been administered to both prisoners and staff. In total, 90% of the prisoners took the first jab of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Cremona also confirmed that thanks to the new facilities, prisoners from other countries who are not vaccinated against illnesses such as Hepatitis C and so on can now be given the necessary care needed in order to prevent virus outbreaks at the prison.
New services such as a full-time dentist, psychiatric services and podiatry were introduced as well.